You have to go into an old sigma camera with a large format film mindset. Put it on a tripod, deliberately compose intentional shots and develop each individual picture as you would a single slide with care and love. If you approach them like that you will be rewarded with lovely images.

@snappiness

3 ай бұрын

Yes, well said

@ozkr2988

3 ай бұрын

You can do that with every camera tho…

@AnthonyJGianotti

2 ай бұрын

@@ozkr2988 so then don’t use the sigma and let others enjoy what they enjoy…

@v000000000000v

2 ай бұрын

​@@ozkr2988 yea but not every camera has a foveon sensor lol the colors are something else on a foveon sensor when you have good lighting

For over 10 years my still go to travel cameras have been my dp2 dp3 merrill from sigma. Super solid. Tough. And awesome foveon photos. The only downside is you need a ton of batteries to power them. It's like in analog times when you have to change the film roll every 30 pictures :D

I have an SD Quattro H that has literally become one of my favorite cameras of all time. Forget the limitations or low light capabilities, it doesn't have any. This is basically a 100 ISO camera, don't ask it to do what it can't and that's it. But pair it with the fastest SA glass you can (still) get your hands on, and you have photographic tool providing medium format grade output and colors unlike anything that else you've ever seen. And don't get me started about shooting infrared, weather seriously or just for fun, because that you get by reversibly removing by hand the camera's IR filter and being transported to a while new world of visual imaging. And the brilliance of the camera's design and ergonomics matched an uniquely brilliant secondary info LCD screen, and simply put, there is no other camera like it. If Sigma some day pulls off the trick of making an upgraded version of this with a Foveon full frame sensor and improved low light performance, I will be the FIRST ONE in line to pre-order it, I don't care about the price or delivery ETA. I admire Sigma, I really do. They have passion for photography above all other companies and they have balls, real balls! Their designs are original, their ideas their own, their cameras as unique and bold unlike any other manufacturer and they keep pushing the envelope for optical approach and features on just about any new lens they design. Canon, Nikon, Panasonic all of the rest blah blah blah make surely awesome products, but Sigma, I truly admire.

I remember the old version of the Luminous Landscape website had reviews for all this "old" cameras I would spend hours reading all the reviews from that age

Great review and camera, I agree, there are times when I don't want to be bother with the tech and just enjoy taking photos. Always great content and love the results! Been on the fence with Sigma, maybe one day! Thanks for sharing!

I have owned Sigmas last Foveon sensor camera for the last 3 years, the Sigma Quattro H and it is my favorite photography camera ever. I treat Foveon like ISO 100 film camera that is digital, so basically a film camera that can take thousands worth of shots. If you think of it like that the camera is pure bliss. And really this is Sigmas intention on using the camera anyways. The images color, 3D depth and sharpness is just unmatched still to this day IMO. The only thing that comes close to film like images are the last high end CCD sensors and medium format cameras... I know those are bold statements but i stand by it. These cameras are about image quality first, and Foveon absolutley delivers! I also want to say thank god for Sigma to acquire the company and keep the Foveon technology alive!

Awesomee video! As a fellow nerd I recently grabbed myself a Sigma dp1s and oh man, these cameras definitely aren't for the faint of heart. I love the fact that they make you work for your images both at the time of shooting and in post. I will say one thing though regarding the jpegs, I actually quite like the fact that everything looks a bit off lol. Have a great weekend🖖

I started in photography with a sigma film body. Id love to get my hands on a Sigma DSLR as well. Nice grab.

Oh my! The lenses you've got there are gorgeous, jelly 😣😅

Thanks, I always wondered about the Sigma cameras.

managed to find a dp2m in november last year, dont ask how. Its working great, I'm still getting used to the editing workflow but its really impressive

@snappiness

3 ай бұрын

Awesome!

since the day I saw your video about old ccd camera I started to love the old cameras now hehehe thank you

Owned a Sigma DP1 (I think), the focusing mechanism had failed, but you could use it up close to subjects if you did manual focus thingy. The JPEGs straight out of camera were lovely. I keep looking at them used because I fancy another one. The one had, albeit faulty, was really well built and a joy to use.

Sold my SD Quattro H a few years ago and I regret it. Despite all the negatives of shooting Foveon, when the "stars aligned" the pics were exceptional.

@snappiness

3 ай бұрын

I have a Quattro H :) took it out for the first spin yesterday and am happy so far! Using manual M42 glass because the older Sigma lenses I have it outresolves. I need some modern Art lenses for it. But the focus peaking was surprisingly good. I can't wait for it to warm up and get some good landscapes!

@jojoaausone

3 ай бұрын

@@snappiness If you can put up with Sigma's software, I guess it's true love.🙂

My DP2 produces excellent pictures jpg sooc - just set up the satisfying picture profile and no postprocessing needed. Images have its flavours and it's cool. And details are amazing. Up to iso400 image is outstanding. With b&w you can go full iso range ehm max 1600 ;)

the full spectrum has me verry interested in getting one of these, also the nerdyness of it in general

Your channel is absolutely fantastic.

I remeber the PopSci article on the 1st sencor. It was thier product of the year if memory serves. I was SOOOOOOOO excited for this tech. and well, yeah...

SD10 was a dream upgrade from my SD9. The SD10, with rechargeable lithium cells was usable and produced great images. The ISO was useable to 400 at a push, the autofocus was terrible, lenses, so-so, but the Foveon images were lovely, although on occasions they had problems with reds. Also, I have 10s of thousands of x3f raw images that modern editors may not support.

I have both the SD14 and SD15, and I love them both. The SD14 has a strange green tint to its images, so you need to edit a lot.

I understand the appeal of the Foveon X3 sensors. but what is your opinion of a comparison of colour between the X3 and the Kodak, "Kodachrome II," sensor in the Olympus E500, a camera I now own. I understand that the Foveon can be considered, "medium format" and the W500 at 8mp doesn't cut it that way, but the colour comparison??? Thanks

Sigma inner mount is K mount but the flange distance is shorter so not like m42 but like eos 44mm, and the lens contacts are also eos like.

Without intending to be brash, these cameras are rare for a good reason. Not because they are collectors items but for the simple fact that very few people bought them, so the used supply is very very limited. This is no reflection on the quality of the sensor, but at the time the digital itself was revolutionary and very very few people understood how it worked( dare I say that even less know how it works now ), so there was very little appetite for yet another type of ' revolutionary ' sensor ( the colour filter array to be more precise ) and its software support. These sesnors put up a good challenge to APSC and smaller sensors, but once the full frame really kicked in, they had no chance. They do produce more depth in the colour and some increase in resolution due to the sensor architecture.

Treasure hunt - my favorite! Where are the videos about forgotten but great software libraries? More videos about software, please! Thanks for existing and good luck!

Still have my sd10 as an infrared dedicated camera . Hate the batteries . Great images come out of it . Still would like them to make a Medium format camera with a big sensor .

Love playing with my SD9, The original battery arrangement was terrible though, you had to use 2 CR123A batteries to power the camera aspects (mirror and shutter) and 4 AA / 2 CRV3 batteries to power the digital side. there is a software bug in the SD9 that makes the camera regularly believe that the digital-side batteries are dead even if they are fresh, meaning that you have to get a coin to undo the CR123A batteries and power cycle the camera multiple times until it accepts that they aren't dead. I removed the original AA battery tray on my camera and installed a modern lithium battery and a USB-C charging port, by tapping this power back into the DC input jack I no longer have the concern of 2 sets of batteries as well. The original SD9 is really a film camera with a digital back. my serial number on this camera is 1000386 which is lower than any other I've found online as well with most people believing that it started at 1000400. Great video as well.

@snappiness

3 ай бұрын

Wow, what a pain. I have a Fujifilm S2 pro that works a similar way, though thankfully no problems yet with mine having to power cycle or anything. Just works (for now)

I've got a Polaroid X530 sitting on my desk right now which I bought last week. They came with a defective charger from the factory but you can use Olympus Li-10B batteries with it as they're basically the same product. Plus you can get a charger for pretty cheap as well. Oh and talking about batteries, battery life is absolutely horrible!

I own and use many Sigma Foveon Cameras and i like them a lot, but it's always hard to find the right white balance and colors - and it's different with any of them. So they are more ore less only useful for experimantal photography, but not really for documentation ore jobs.

Hi , can you mode this camera to EF mount ?

I have a Sigma DP1s and a DP1 Merril, I also had a DP3, Foveon has interesting colors but problems with sensitivity to shadows and need using only 100 iso and their propriate sw. I also tried several CCDs but in the end I was surprised by the colors of the NEX-C3 like small cam, my no.1 cam is A7r mk1 in pixel details and mostly noise-less and huge dynamic range and especially the A7 mk1 as really amazing colors rendition what i seen, like yelow, orange and green rendition needs for landscape, where new cameras the colors are losing even though I tried to saturate, all doing in RAW, maby basicaly probably a weaker color layer on the sensors due to better sensitivity. Seriously newer cameras can't do it and the CCD never did yellow and green even though I tried the last Sony a350 and CCD has same problems like Foveon because they amplified only basic iso. i try Olympus and ended up being pretty bad for me in terms of colors, especially in the autumn colors, i don know how can say "films colors", no i shoot on Kodak films and Olympus hasnt good at halfs of Kodak films, only some Nikons with Sony sensors do like same results but in end, Sony color science with their own sensors is mosly the best solution for best colors... nad Canon is bad all time...

2:06 I remembered a guy who is purchasing SA mount lens from Sigma directly (because most dealers just don't even carry them), and he literally received phone calls from Sigma customer support confirming that he is actually buying the SA mount variant...

That was my first digital camera!! I made a lot of good pics with it but hated the lowlight performance, so I got a D200 next. Then, I hated the lowlight performance of THAT camera! Finally got a D3 a couple years later and, at last, I was happy with lowlight performance! Now I miss the SD10 and the D200. Photographers are so f’ing WEIRD!! Today, I shoot with a pair of D4S’s - a pair of Df’s - and THANKS TO YOU a Nikon P7100, that I just purchased because of your video about the P7000! Thanks for that!

I'm enough of a nerd that Sigma has been my intro into digital photography. I've captured a lot of images I really like, and perhaps it's just inexperience, but I haven't felt the need to tweak the colors very much in post in many of my shots. My old DP2 would sometimes bias towards green in the white balance, but one or two ticks towards magenta/red was all that I'd need to fix it pretty consistently (at least to my untrained eye!) Maybe I need to convince some more friends to go out shooting with me so I'd have shots to compare against 😅

Excellent video as always! I've shot with a number of Sigma's including the SD14. Definitely a unique experience!

Cool camera but when I saw the price I thought maybe not 😂 great video as ever 😊👍🏻

I've read about how foveon photos have this special look on computer screens that bayer photos don't, but does this look transfer to prints?

@taurig

3 ай бұрын

i may say - yes. i`ve been printing jpeg sooc and raw edited in native sigma software from Sigma Dp first generations.

Great video James, nowhere else do I get inspired and warned at the same time ;-)) A while back I was about to buy one of your t-shirts but got distracted, now I can't find them. Are they gone? Thanks.

Isn't the sigma mount just mechanically a Pentax K but with slightly different flange focal distance, rotated and without aperture lever? I think it should be possible to use old Pentax K lenses, even if without IR filter

You should have wrapped some tape onto the nose bridge of your glasses for this one! 😝. Colors don’t look too bad, not as bad as the dynamic range. Cool about the full spectrum option though!

I was messing with my canon m6 II picture styles and finally got my jpg pix to look good right out of the camera. I don't have to tinker much anymore. I see that sigma only has a 10 MP sensor, I just couldn't use anything less than 20 MP anymore.

@snappiness

3 ай бұрын

I'm a fan of getting nice SOOC jpegs! Nice!

@paulmenard7400

3 ай бұрын

the quality is equivilent to 50-100% more than bayer per megapixel. so 10mp would like a 15-20mp bayer sensor with a good lens

I had and sold the SD Quattro. It could produce undeniably great colors and detailed images, and has one of the best grips/ergos ever, but it was SUCH a pain to use. The AF was very slow and often missed. The noise in any shadow areas was very ugly and hard to salvage. I could occasionally get away with ISO 200 in outdoor light, but the rest of the time it stayed locked at 100. I was able to shoot DNGs so I could edit in Capture One and bypass the mediocre Sigma software, but be forewarned that the files are MASSIVE (100MB+). I might have been able to live with a lot of this, but one of the biggest dealbreakers for me was the lack of lenses, like you mention here. There are so few options and really only the Art lenses are worth that kind of money. I had the 18-35, which is great in any mount, and the 30mm 1.4, which had chromatic aberration out the wazoo. The green and purple fringing in any shots with higher contrast drove me batty trying to correct and for some shots I ended up just having to go B&W to salvage them. I think if I was doing product photography in a studio setting with highly-controlled, high-power lighting and a tripod, the Quattro punches way above its weight and delivers gorgeous results. I can't really recommend it for much of anything else, though. I wanted to love Foveon and I still really like some of the photos I took with the camera, but I was pleased that it held its resale value well.

@snappiness

3 ай бұрын

That's sort of my feeling too. I always want to love Foveon, and I am impressed sometimes with it, but the overall experience and limitations is not the most fun package. And I'm just a hobbyist, so I have to balance that. I do have a Quattro H now (this SD10 was sold long ago, I filmed this months ago). Need some Art lenses because these older Sigma lenses are getting destroyed by it's resolution. Why oh why do I keep getting sucked back in? :P

@christopherbgriffith

3 ай бұрын

@@snappiness Given how expensive all those SA mount lenses tend to be, I think the combo of the 18-35 and the 50-100 are the best bang for the buck. You get the flexibility of zooms but the quality of primes, and the 1.8 max aperture is great for those light-thirsty Foveons. MPB has them available periodically for good prices - I'd set an alert and wait for one to pounce. I also tried the full-spectrum mode at one point, removing the IR filter and putting on KolariVision's IR Chrome filter. It was interesting and very detailed, but the results skewed very pink - much pinker than Aerochrome was as film. I ended up getting an old Canon 60D that had been IR converted for $200 and the results from it are much better in terms of color, if not detail. I do love the build quality of the Quattro, though. It felt super premium and looks very cool.

Ok real talk content idea. OVERHEAD table shot vibey, old camera ASMR. 30 Minutes or more of you assembling old dslr cameras, loading film, locking in an old interchangeable lens, hitting old buttons or tweaking tactile controls, etc then hitting that sweet sweet shutter of a bygone camera. I’d zone out to that whilst doing work in a heartbeat.

If i remeber correctly not all lesnes working perfect with foveon sensors. This is something about light must reach the sensor in perfect angle.

can you review the Canon EOS D series? tysm

Yep that little canon that has fovion sensor is gonna go crazy

You're so young for a Belushi reference. Thank you emoji.

I regularly think I should sell the SD15 and the lenses I've accumulated. Then I take it out on a sunny day, review the images, and think "why would I ever want to sell this camera!". If it's not a sunny day, I usually leave the SD15 in the cupboard. It's frustrating to use when the light isn't favourable.

Are the jpegs SOOC also weird looking?

@StephenStrangways

3 ай бұрын

The SD10 does not create JPG files. It only does raw.

@snappiness

3 ай бұрын

Yeah, that's part of the problem. It may not be quite as bad as I made it out to be, but I was trying to come off strong so that nobody just ran out and grabbed one and hated me for it, haha. It's a camera you have to work with, and I've never had a SOOC jpeg that looked right to me, so then it's always a post process experience.

It is a very dangerous hole to get sucked into exploring all these different types of cameras. After a point I had to just say enough is enough.

They used to be cheap on the used market, that was until ... KZread.... Then covid. That can be said about most things these days i guess. I got most my wish list compleate prior so i consider myself lucky. Great video as always.

I wish I could, but I've never been able to understand the appeal of Foveon. I do like the charm of older cameras, and the idea of these being very technical to use and extract an image from, but to my eye there is just no payoff. I must be missing something?

@snappiness

3 ай бұрын

I think that's why they haven't ever caught on. It's one thing to be able to technically explain the benefits, but when you have to explain them to everyone because people can't see the difference... then it's probably not worth it :P Still cool though.

I'd love to try one but I may need to trim the collection the amount of adapters alone is getting ridiculous

@snappiness

3 ай бұрын

Haha, I know what you mean. Too many cameras is one thing, but all different mounts too and the lenses and it becomes too much to manage.

The SA mount is so unfortunate. It looks like no one makes a Nikon F to Sigma SA adapter anymore. The flange distance is really killer, especially for the SD Quattro. It's a mirrorless camera! but the mount doesn't really allow it to adapt any lenses. Would kill for an SD camera with an L mount. Heck, I don't even need the full frame foveon in there. Just make the SD Quattro with an L mount!

I love the Foveon sensor but hate the Sigma Photo Pro software. I would use the camera more but having to use their software makes it a real chore.

@snappiness

3 ай бұрын

It's actually pretty powerful, just so slow and crashes constantly (at least for me on my Mac)

I love foveon bnw

2003 wow. Noice. I was hoping you'd one day cover the lx100 from panasonic and compare to its leica counterpart.

@snappiness

3 ай бұрын

The lx100 always looked amazing to me. Maybe one day. I do have two cool Panasonic's I'm waiting until it warms up to shoot :) (I'm not a fan of winter haha)

@StephenStrangways

3 ай бұрын

@MyFriendlyPup they're completely identical.

@MyFriendlyPup

3 ай бұрын

​@@StephenStrangwaysi know! It is incredible. Two cameras, the same with vastly different price tags. I sold my lx100 and regret it. It was a timelapse beast and amazing 1.8 lens for quick photos. Camera needed more RAM.

@StephenStrangways

3 ай бұрын

@@MyFriendlyPup it shows what people are willing to pay for a logo, and how far they'll go to delude themselves. You'll find claims that the Leica versions of Panasonic cameras have different colour profiles, but they never test and compare them. When they do, they find newer Panasonic and Leica twins produce identical photos, but say the older ones were different. When they compare the older Panasonic and Leica twins, they find they produce identical photos, but say the newer ones are different. It's all just self-delusion to justify excess spending on luxury goods.

These older cameras have exploded in price since everyone started making videos about them. Luckily these have replaced a lot of the vintage glass videos from the mid-late 2010s so vintage glass is finally coming back down from the crazy peak.

Nerds! What other cameras have easily removable hot mirrors? I must devote myself to full-spectrum photography. Thank you.

Oh geesh, I remember this line of cameras. So different from any other brand. "A quick snapshot" ha not with these. you need to take your time, set up the shot, set it just right and then you get a good picture.

Looks vaguely like Ektachrome.

All Sigma cameras except the new CMOS ones are like shooting negative medium format cameras LOL. Super slow, super sensitive to lighting conditions, very cumbersome and awful ergonomics. But I still love Sigma Foveon, a look that cannot be beaten, not yet anyway and its the only commercial sensor thats closest to film.

I have an sd14 for the same reason, geeeekiness :D its not bad, but prices for them for some reason are expensive

@Moonrakerd

3 ай бұрын

wanted sd9 but impossible

@snappiness

3 ай бұрын

Maybe the relative rarity - I'm assuming there's much less of them than the Nikons and Canons of that era! It's too bad, because if they were cheaper it'd be easier to recommend for people to play with!

Hmm… I’d probably like this camera - But who am I to judge, being a Pentax K1 user (Program-A and MX since ‘83)…? 😂

OK, I guess I'm an old pseudo-nerd because all my "old" DSLRs are Canons with CMOS sensors. I have a "digicam" with a CCD sensor, but nothing with a Foveon.

I think the lens influences the results more than the camera TBH

I've been trying to sell a broken lens for these for some time. No one wants it because the cameras are rare to begin with.

Part purist, part masochist, and a whole lot of nerd. - A sd Quattro owner The Quattro can output DNG files, which makes them compatible with other RAW editors, but I've found them harder to work with then my Pentax's DNGs. To my taste, the Quattro is decent up to ISO 400 and even ISO 1600 in monochrome mode. I originally bought it for digitizing film, but I never got results I liked from it. As for that one weird point-and-shoot. As far as I can tell, the only ones out in the world were released by _accident_ because the manufacturer cancelled the release at the last minute due to image quality issues. I don't see them often, the last one went for $100 on eBay which is ridiculous.

Believe or not I want to try one. Makes no sense, but what the heck.

cool

Have you ever nerd out on a Lytro ILLUM?

Ahhh you keep costing me money. Last video I watched, I ended up buying a Fuji s3 pro

Yoshitoshi Abe uses a Sigma, so it can't be bad.

Man, why u gotta drive up the prices on things I'm hunting for, lol.

Sigma cameras are absolutely terrible and i would never recommend using them.... I have 3 of them and will probably never sell them! Can't shoot at over ISO 50 or everything falls apart... finding them and especially finding lenses is almost impossible... they're still a joy to use if you're a masochist! Would love it if you made a camera about the lytro illum camera, if you need one i can happily lend you my camera

Tbh… by buying the two Sigma Art 18-35 1.8 and 24-105 f4, and discovering how poorly they perform, mostly inconsistently, I wouldn’t buy anything from sigma… ever! Maybe a lens cloth, but only maybe!

woah early

Do sony mavica lol

.

such a handsome man, also that camera is very weird, i thought on first sight it was a convertible focal plane camera lol edit: can you review the sony A77Mk2? I have it since 2014 and it's still a beastly camera however it's picky with lenses as it tends to behave better with Minolta and sony lenses than sigma or other brands

Yikes this camera is so ugly. And what is with the mount? Wow crazy.

Why is it that camera sensors are not round? would it not make sense to have a sensor to fits the round optical elements perfectly? Also would it make the camera truly flexible for post proses photo/vide formatting? @snappiness

@zzzZniitemareZzzz

3 ай бұрын

If you want a round sensor all you have to do is pay a trillion dollars for someone to make it. Just think about how complicated sensors are, and now try to make their rectangle/square shape into a circle. It's not that it can't be done, it's that it would be insanely complicated and awful for anyone to manufacture

It looks AI generated haha

Why do you say that one need to be a masochist to use any Sigma camera? Have you tried them all? I have apart from SD10, SD9 and SD1. Your statement has. zero value

Sigma cameras are cool but way too collectible.

*so bassicly it's made for sigma males ?* ok im out bad joke vera, bad joke...

Hey man, have you played with a Nikon D100 yet? I picked up a few recently and I really love shooting with them! Just gotta get one that doesn’t have a bad left-side, Mode Dial. It commonly stops functioning-so I had to buy FOUR D100’s to get TWO that are mint and fully functional. Although, you can get them for $60-$100, so at least they’re not too expensive. I think you should try it out-it’s the only old, digital body I know of that has good ISO 1600 performance (assuming you expose properly). I’ve got some really killer shots out of that old, 6 MP sensor, it surprised me.

Have you ever reviewed Konica Minolta 5D? That was my first dslr :D @snappiness

@snappiness

Ай бұрын

No but it looks awesome :)

For a patient photographer, these Sigma SD cameras will be a wonderful but stubborn tool. The noise is in the order of magnitude of analogue film. And there are for 100 and 400 ASA only. 1600 is only for hard-core noise lovers 😀🤌🏻.